Thoughts of an Eagle

As part of the cataloguing of Mrs Sheila Redshaw's archive collection, I am in the process of copy typing a manuscript: 'The Lords of the Manor of Nocton and their times - drafted by J Eagle'.

This draft manuscript was gifted to Mr John Ireson in 1966.

It came into the possession of Mrs Sheila Redshaw, after kindly being donated to the archive by the Ireson family, together with other material relevant to Nocton.

The following is text from a handwritten note, discovered within the draft. Whilst it is not signed, it appears to be in the same hand as J Eagle. There is no reference as to source, or whether this is original work, but there is a message in there and perhaps some parallel to the way we perceive life in 2011. I thought you might find it interesting.

"Age and Life

From the point of view of the teenager, at fifty-nine, I must be considered an old man. This practice of drawing comparisons is one that we seem to follow for most of our lives. Thus a man of ninety can always turn to one of ninety-six to point out that he is younger. This measure of relative values through comparison can be comforting to those who would like to encourage the impression that according to such calculations they, at least, are so much younger; so they are not yet really very old – even at ninety.

Some people manage to condition themselves into accepting the advance of old-age gracefully with the thought that every age provides its own particular compensating features.

It is so easy to deceive ourselves when we are young into thinking that time is a limitless factor in life. No doubt this is something to be thankful for. The delay between twenty and twenty-one can seem almost endless, whereas the gap between fifty-nine and sixty is gone in a flash. Moreover, the step that separates sixty from seventy is a very short one for those who are seventy.

The lonely and neglected occupy the most miserably pitiful position in the world, and are often so tormented mentally, for want of companionship, as to become either horribly narrow-minded and embittered, or unreasonably timid and fearful. Sooner or later they reach the point where they are thought of as oddities. Even if they are gifted oddities, the stigma of being thought odd stings at any age. Such people sometimes seek an avenue of escape by claiming to be independent. But independence is only a novelty, and no-one has the talent to be completely self-dependent. Only the severely mentally sick can develop that particular attitude of mind in which they find their own solitude self-sufficient for their requirements.

Life is so full of so many bewildering complexities that reviewed as a whole they become incomprehensible to our limited understanding, a fact that leads us to recognize and acknowledge the dismal depth of our ignorance, so that we are amazed by our incapacity to appreciate and understand the problems of life that some people have to face. Indeed, one can easily become so hypnotized by the range and extent of these difficulties that it is impossible to finalize ones research by concrete conclusions of a decisive and positive nature.

Many people are at a loss to say just what they believe is the purpose and meaning of life. In fact some people dismiss this question by simply asserting that life has no purpose or meaning. To me this answer is merely a form of evasion, a stubborn refusal to face facts. Even if life is only to be recognized as a form of progressive development in the scale of evolution it has a purpose and a meaning. Those with strong religious conviction cling to the dogma formulated by the Church in which we are introduced to spiritual values and the immortality of a soul. Thus the link between religion and evolution is the common belief that life, like death, is not an end in itself, but represents stages in the progressive continuation of something that began millions and millions and millions of years ago. So called indifference to the question illustrates apathy and stagnation in the field of reasoning in some people, whilst in others it portrays a form of mental paralysis developed to deaden the dread of what the unknown might mean."

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